I Remember (Stasi)
December 31, 2016 19:26
I woke this morning to my dogs calling me from their crates. Correction: I woke to Maisie, our two-year-old Golden calling to me from her crate. The occasional cross between a yip and a whine told me that I had fallen back asleep and had slept too long for her taste. I’d been up for some hours in the night woken by an anxiety that threatened. This past night though, I had recognized it for the temptation it was to take up a mantle of dark fear that was not mine to wear. I was too tired to wrestle with the spiritual assault. (That is what is was, friends. Even laden with some truth as to the circumstances of my life, it was a spiritual attack to entice me into the land of worry.) Too sleepy to corral my thoughts to the deeper truth of the faithfulness of God, I did not want to wake fully. I did not feel called to do so. This night, unlike too many other nights, I simply rolled over and said, “No,” and tucked my heart into God and continued to rest. I redirected my thoughts first to sweet memories, then to memories I wanted to make, and suddenly Maisie was calling to me. Surely it is well after 6:00 a.m. Sweet and poor girl, I looked at the clock and it was 8:00! I quickly got up to let both dogs out to run outside and take care of business.
When I opened the door to release them to bound outside, a cold blast hit my face. It was a crisp cold. A winter cold. A cold that spoke of past snow and past stories. I recognized a smell that I hadn’t for years. Though the winter here is full of crisp, cold mornings, something in the wind or perhaps something in the night had awakened a stirring in my soul. I remembered that evocative smell, that feeling, that invitation to play.
Suddenly I was eight years old and wearing my favorite blue and white jacket with fur around the hood. I was a little girl again, getting ready to go outside and discover the joy awaiting me. I hadn’t remembered that feeling or that jacket since I don’t know when. Sense memory is something else, isn’t it, showing up at the oddest of times whenever the whim hits it? The sense of smell accesses and evokes memories more than any other.
This morning I was still in my jammies when I opened the front door and the longing to be eight years old again with a front door open before me to a world filled with wonder and unending discovery swept over me. Back then I had different choices. Maybe I’d go sledding with the neighbors. Maybe we’d build a snowman. Maybe I would simply enjoy walking solitarily through the snow, relishing the crisp sound of crunching whiteness beneath my feet. I’ve always liked times alone even as a child.
My soul was filled with expectancy that morning so long ago. I did not know what the day held, but I reached out to it boldly with both mittened hands. I dashed out into the day not certain of what I would find but certain that it was worth finding.
This morning, I remembered that feeling. I remembered the eager anticipation that defined my heart. I remembered answering the invitation to live expectantly with an affirmative. To live without fear. I chose that then and this very morning, I had the opportunity to choose it again. I had the opportunity to choose it in the middle of this past night, and I am going to have a hundred of opportunities to choose it today.
I pray to choose it. I pray that I will allow the memory to have its way with my heart. I pray to become that hope-filled, expectant-of-good child again and for God to use it to cleanse me of cynicism, doubt, and fear—all thieves of the joy that is mine to know.
I do not know what today will hold, but the fresh fragrance that enveloped me at the front door reminded me that I can be a woman of faith who welcomes it.
There's More To The Story (Craig)
May 4, 2016 16:45
I stumbled upon George Bellows's painting, "Dempsey and Firpo".
Considered by many to be the greatest American sports painting it captures the dramatic moment in the 1923 World Heavyweight Championship fight between Jack Dempsey (the reigning champ) and Argentinian Luis Angel Firpo, nicknamed "El Toro de las Pampas" ("The Bull of the Pampas"). 80,000 fans paid to see the fight live.
The painting is straightforward – something is at stake, there is a violent battle, there is a victor and the vanquished. Something about the scene pricked my interest and, as God so often shows up in the simple affairs of our lives He was there. Next to me. Together we lingered on the painting and He whispered, “It is your story Craig”, which I loved hearing but having felt like both fighters I needed help with the interpretation.
My initial read was, “I’m the victor in the ring having just connected with a swooping haymaker that launched my opponent out of the ring into a row of reporters. Yeah!” I’m still standing! I’m in the ring bruised, bleeding, battered; I’m winded and wobbly from the body blows, a little foggy on how many rounds are left but I’m good. I’m still standing!” “Frap” you cancer!
Curious about the fight and the painting I found the scene was in the first round, the Champ, Dempsey, was sent into orbit out of the ring, seriously gashing his head on a typewriter in the row of ringside reporters. Whoa, the hero is getting his butt kicked? What kinda story is this? Dempsey takes a full eight count (and some would say a very, very slow eight count) to get back into the ring and staggeringly faces his opponent.
Then in the second round, in a dramatic reversal it’s Dempsey that plasters Firpo, flooring him seven times and with a minute left in the round clobbers Firpo, knocking him down and out to retain the Championship.
Now the picture hits deeply. I’m Dempsey flying out of the ring? Okay, that’s a twist on my original interpretation but yeah; I’ve been beaten up pretty bad, real bad. I hear a "Hold on Tiger..."
The story doesn’t end with the picture. There’s more, there’s always more to the story. The rest of the story is that Dempsey and I climb back into the ring and with a fierce and holy rage overcome my/our opponent. It’s an epic battle and a glorious victory. Victory, in the end is mine. In that moment, focused on the print in a high end art store I can feel the affirming smile of God throughout my entire body and being. I wanted to yell with God as loud as we could, "Yes! Yes! The story ends gloriously! Given the setting we tempered our excitement to a conversational volume and a simple, "Cool, very cool.".
Victory in the end will be mine!
The physical, spiritual, relational and financial hits of a vigorous cancer can easily launch one into hopelessness and despair. Unless you’re healed or go into remission it’s an inescapable battle that lasts far longer than you’re prepared for with unimaginable ups and downs. But there have been so many transcendent moments in the presence of God where battle, pain, fear and death fade into a “peace that passes understanding” and the story moves from my suffering to my loving others. It is, for now, beyond my ability to fully describe.
My Story is that God has come, I feel good, strong and in many ways “Back”.
I have been places and experienced things that give credibility to the message that God is good, so worthy of our full-hearted worship and adoration; that in His presence all we bear, fear, suffer and grieve is recalibrated and grows strangely dim. In Him there is comfort, healing and the passion to pour into others a supernatural grace only available at the Cross. I worship our God with all my heart.
Specifics:
· I’ve been in the current stage two Clinical Trial for a year. The investigational drug ABT-199 has been great for me. My cancer, though incurable, is kept at a lower threshold without some of the horrific side effects I’ve had with my other treatments.
· I now fly to Houston quarterly instead of weekly or monthly for testing and restaging. On a monthly basis my local Oncologist does blood work to early alert my Houston team on any sudden change.
· I’m pretty close to the “R”” word. “Remission” would be a wonderful word to hear when I return to M.D. Anderson this June. I will be very emotional at that moment. The culmination of so many prayers over such a long season.
· To be in remission I have a couple of lymph nodes that need to shrink a little bit more and some improvement in my blood. Even in remission the descriptive medial term for my prognosis is “Wait and watch”. Their prediction is the cancer will return, mine is that Jesus returns sooner.
· Lori and I are trying to address the trauma and PTSD that can immobilize us with anxiety, loneliness and malaise. LiveStrong Cancer Survivor Courses, trauma yoga, breathing techniques, a lot of surrendering to God, counseling and the love and support of others is huge.
Your prayers, friendships, conversations, support and love have pushed us through the gauntlet of Stage 4 Leukemia to a hair’s width from Remission. It would not have happened with out your prayers and love.
Love you, thank you, Craig and Lori McConnell
There's More To The Story (Craig)
May 4, 2016 16:45
I stumbled upon George Bellows's painting, "Dempsey and Firpo".
Considered by many to be the greatest American sports painting it captures the dramatic moment in the 1923 World Heavyweight Championship fight between Jack Dempsey (the reigning champ) and Argentinian Luis Angel Firpo, nicknamed "El Toro de las Pampas" ("The Bull of the Pampas"). 80,000 fans paid to see the fight live.
The painting is straightforward – something is at stake, there is a violent battle, there is a victor and the vanquished. Something about the scene pricked my interest and, as God so often shows up in the simple affairs of our lives He was there. Next to me. Together we lingered on the painting and He whispered, “It is your story Craig”, which I loved hearing but having felt like both fighters I needed help with the interpretation.
My initial read was, “I’m the victor in the ring having just connected with a swooping haymaker that launched my opponent out of the ring into a row of reporters. Yeah!” I’m still standing! I’m in the ring bruised, bleeding, battered; I’m winded and wobbly from the body blows, a little foggy on how many rounds are left but I’m good. I’m still standing!” “Frap” you cancer!
Curious about the fight and the painting I found the scene was in the first round, the Champ, Dempsey, was sent into orbit out of the ring, seriously gashing his head on a typewriter in the row of ringside reporters. Whoa, the hero is getting his butt kicked? What kinda story is this? Dempsey takes a full eight count (and some would say a very, very slow eight count) to get back into the ring and staggeringly faces his opponent.
Then in the second round, in a dramatic reversal it’s Dempsey that plasters Firpo, flooring him seven times and with a minute left in the round clobbers Firpo, knocking him down and out to retain the Championship.
Now the picture hits deeply. I’m Dempsey flying out of the ring? Okay, that’s a twist on my original interpretation but yeah; I’ve been beaten up pretty bad, real bad. I hear a "Hold on Tiger..."
The story doesn’t end with the picture. There’s more, there’s always more to the story. The rest of the story is that Dempsey and I climb back into the ring and with a fierce and holy rage overcome my/our opponent. It’s an epic battle and a glorious victory. Victory, in the end is mine. In that moment, focused on the print in a high end art store I can feel the affirming smile of God throughout my entire body and being. I wanted to yell with God as loud as we could, "Yes! Yes! The story ends gloriously! Given the setting we tempered our excitement to a conversational volume and a simple, "Cool, very cool.".
Victory in the end will be mine!
The physical, spiritual, relational and financial hits of a vigorous cancer can easily launch one into hopelessness and despair. Unless you’re healed or go into remission it’s an inescapable battle that lasts far longer than you’re prepared for with unimaginable ups and downs. But there have been so many transcendent moments in the presence of God where battle, pain, fear and death fade into a “peace that passes understanding” and the story moves from my suffering to my loving others. It is, for now, beyond my ability to fully describe.
My Story is that God has come, I feel good, strong and in many ways “Back”.
I have been places and experienced things that give credibility to the message that God is good, so worthy of our full-hearted worship and adoration; that in His presence all we bear, fear, suffer and grieve is recalibrated and grows strangely dim. In Him there is comfort, healing and the passion to pour into others a supernatural grace only available at the Cross. I worship our God with all my heart.
Specifics:
· I’ve been in the current stage two Clinical Trial for a year. The investigational drug ABT-199 has been great for me. My cancer, though incurable, is kept at a lower threshold without some of the horrific side effects I’ve had with my other treatments.
· I now fly to Houston quarterly instead of weekly or monthly for testing and restaging. On a monthly basis my local Oncologist does blood work to early alert my Houston team on any sudden change.
· I’m pretty close to the “R”” word. “Remission” would be a wonderful word to hear when I return to M.D. Anderson this June. I will be very emotional at that moment. The culmination of so many prayers over such a long season.
· To be in remission I have a couple of lymph nodes that need to shrink a little bit more and some improvement in my blood. Even in remission the descriptive medial term for my prognosis is “Wait and watch”. Their prediction is the cancer will return, mine is that Jesus returns sooner.
· Lori and I are trying to address the trauma and PTSD that can immobilize us with anxiety, loneliness and malaise. LiveStrong Cancer Survivor Courses, trauma yoga, breathing techniques, a lot of surrendering to God, counseling and the love and support of others is huge.
Your prayers, friendships, conversations, support and love have pushed us through the gauntlet of Stage 4 Leukemia to a hair’s width from Remission. It would not have happened with out your prayers and love.
Love you, thank you, Craig and Lori McConnell
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